


Tranquility

by Trams



Series: immortalis [2]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, Fluff, Humor, I wanted it to be present day but not the hot mess of today so it takes place a couple of years ago, Immortality, M/M, Modern Era, Non-Chronological, Reincarnation, Romance, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2019-01-07 04:17:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12225591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trams/pseuds/Trams
Summary: For the Mag7Week Prompt: Friends & Family, and a little bit of Sunset as well.It's also a sequel toBulletproof. Where after more than a hundred years together Billy and Goody are still alive, and still very much in love. And then familliar faces start to show up...





	Tranquility

**Author's Note:**

> Technically I suppose you don't need to have read Bulletproof, all you need to know is that Billy and Goody are immortal. This fic doesn't answer a single one of the purposefully left unanswered questions of the first fic, it probably just raises more. This was written for one purpose only, to be sweet happy fluff and nothing else.

“This is going to sound crazy, I know” the man who looked exactly like Faraday said. “But reincarnation is real.”

Before Billy could even say anything Faraday continued.

“And, I am sorry, but you look like the spitting image of a man who I defended a town together with, in the old west, and who also died there, presumably. Unless you survived, which would be totally unfair. And, I don’t know how this works, but I automatically started to remember it when I was ten. But it’s totally cool if you don’t, or if you aren’t even that dude. I can just leave and you can just think of me as some crazy person you bumped into, maybe a fun story to tell your friends before you forget all about it...” He trailed off.

Billy had been biting the inside of his cheek to keep from interrupting or starting to smile, but now that the man seemed to have stopped talking Billy opened his mouth.

“This is going to sound crazy.” Billy started to grin. “But immortality is real.”

Faraday frowned, and cocked his head to the side, looking at Billy. Still smiling Billy watched as realization started to dawn on Faraday’s face.

“You mean?” Faraday started in a low voice. “Oh my god!”

~ ~ ~

Billy stubbed out the joint on the porch railing, the dark wood pockmarked with black spots, and flicked it down into the sand, close to where the beach met the edge of grass that surrounded the back of their house. Their porch looked out at the Pacific, and the waves which crashed onto shore. Billy yawned and stretched. He had slept badly, not fallen into a proper deep sleep until the early morning; only to be woken by a kiss on his temple from Goody, who had told him to sleep a bit longer. Billy had made a half hearted attempt at a mumbled protest, he was supposed to drive Goody to his appointment after all. Goody had told him he’d already called a cab.

“Gonna be an expensive journey,” Billy murmured to himself now. 

The sun was obscured by a light grey haze and the breeze was cold this morning. Shivering a little in the morning air, only clad in Goody’s blue and white checked pyjama bottoms, which had been the first thing he’d found to pull on when he walked outside for a smoke.

Billy headed back inside, walking through their house to the front. Entering the kitchen where he poured himself a cup of coffee while looking out through the window at the trees of the forest surrounding their little secluded beach; the gravel road spilling out from between the trees, a band of grey and brown cutting through the green grass on both sides.

He sat down at the kitchen island, drinking his coffee while finishing a book he’d been reading for the past few days. An hour later he was dressed in jeans and a tee, sitting in the car going into town to pick Goody up from his therapist. 

Goody had been bouncing between different therapists throughout the twentieth century, with a lot of long breaks of not seeing anyone at all, because he’d been put off by not being able to actually share everything anyway. They’d discovered his current therapist in the mid 90’s, a fellow immortal, even older than them. Goody met with her one Friday every month. She’d offered Billy to talk to her to, or introduce him to a colleague of hers, but he’d declined at first. Not taking up the offer until after their trip to Korea.

After three miles of bumpy gravel road, Billy turned onto another bumpy gravel road. The sun was peeking through the clouds, and the trees at the sides were casting shadows on the road.

They hadn’t made it to Korea until almost fifty years after the Korean War, almost a hundred and fifty years since Billy left. He had felt as lost there as he had the first time he arrived in America. It was one thing experiencing a country’s slow, and in some ways rapid, change through time, a whole other thing to have a memory of it and then when seeing it again discovering that nothing was the same. No amount of news he had read about his former home had fully managed to prepare him.

After another couple of miles he turned onto a proper road, right where the forest ended.

~ ~ ~

“Hey,” Goody’s low voice, but with an excited tone to it, interrupted Billy from his reading. He was nestled in between Goody and the back of the couch, his head leaning against Goody’s shoulder. Their legs were tangled together, and they were pressed tightly against each other; one of Goody’s arms behind Billy’s head, and the other doing something on the laptop balanced on Goody’s stomach.

“Doesn’t this dude look exactly like Vasquez,” Goody said, pushing the laptop closer to Billy.

Goody pointed to the screen at someone who had written in the group “Hidden Immortals” – Billy hated the name of the group, and if he had started a Facebook group for immortals would not have picked that. Goody would of course remind him that Billy wouldn’t have started such a group in the first place. Goody wasn’t the group owner either, which was a pity because then Billy could have easily made him chose any other name for it – Billy had time to see the man had written something about reincarnation, when Goody pulled the laptop closer to himself again.

“Let’s see if I can find a better picture.”

Goody clicked around a bit in the man’s albums, and found mostly pictures of at least three different dogs, and possibly a whole herd of different horses. Until he found a picture of the man’s clean shaved face. There was, Billy admitted to himself, something familiar about the man’s lips in that grin, and those eyes seemed familiar as well.

“I’m not sure,” Billy said. The problem with living a very long time, was that people’s faces tended to get a bit blurry in his mind, and he would quite often see people who looked like someone he had met in the past.

“Maybe it would be easier if he had stubble?” Goody said with a frown. He continued searching through the Facebook photos of the man who could possibly be Vasquez, but no stubbled-selfie showed up.

“Why has he suddenly developed a sense of vanity?”

“Says the man who has been sporting the same facial hair since he could start to shave,” Billy said.

“You like my beard,” Goody protested.

“I do,” Billy had to concede.

“I’m going to message him,” Goody said, moving the arm behind Billy’s head.

“What? Are you going to tell him to stop shaving so that you can win an argument with your boyfriend?” Billy asked, a little bit annoyed at the jostling when Goody removed his arm from behind Billy’s head. He’d been comfortable.

“It hurts that you reduce me, your partner for eternity and love of your life, to a simple ‘boyfriend’,” Goody said, but with humor in his voice, while tapping away at the keys. Billy just snorted. Looking at the screen he noticed that Goody was in fact telling this complete stranger to stop shaving.

Twenty-first century technology, so amazing in so many ways, and also so dangerous in the wrong hands.

~ ~ ~

Billy reached town eventually, and drove to the office of Goody’s therapist. He parked and walked towards the entrance, spotting Goody sitting on a bench outside, cigarette between his fingers. When he came closer he saw Goody’s eyes were closed, face tilted towards the sun and basking in the warmth.

“Sorry about the wait,” Billy said.

“No worries, mon cher,” Goody said smiling, and opening his eyes. Billy glanced around surreptitiously – old habits and all that. It had to be one of the more disappointing aspects of it all, how much the world progressed in some ways, and yet seemed to stand still or only taking a step forward one inch at a time – before leaning down and pressing a quick kiss to Goody’s lips.

“Mmm.” Goody made a pleased sound.

“Come on,” Billy said, pulling back, and twitched a smile at Goody, who was looking at Billy with adoration shining through his eyes. Billy knew he looked the same way when he looked at Goody sometimes. It never had to be big romantic moments for it to shine through, it was the small things. Proving to themselves, and to each other, that their feelings burned just as strong now as they they had when they met so long ago.

“We need to get groceries,” Billy said. “For the dinner tonight.”

Goody got to his feet, tossing away the cigarette.

“Oh, is that tonight,” Goody said with feigned surprise, and a crooked grin at Billy, who bit back an answering smile of amusement.

“I had completely forgotten,” Goody said.

“You’ve reminded me of it every single day for the past three weeks,” Billy said.

Goody laughed. Billy’s heart proved it could still swell almost painfully with affection at the sound of Goody’s laughter. He grabbed Goody’s hand lacing their fingers together, smiled at Goody, and they walked hand in hand across the empty parking lot towards their car.

~ ~ ~

Before Billy accidentally stumbled into Faraday, or more accurately the other way around. Billy and Goody had already been introduced to the concept of reincarnation, through Vasquez, who had found a reincarnated Red, or Red had found him, that wasn’t clear. Although first they had found out that Vasquez was immortal.

“I had just found out,” Vasquez said. All three of them sitting in a bar in El Paso, not far from Vasquez ranch.

“What?” Goody asked, taking a drink from his glass.

“That I couldn’t die,” Vasuqez said. “Chisholm found me like a day after I found out.”

“That’s surprisingly late to find out something like that,” Goody said.

“Maybe I’m just more skilled at staying alive,” Vasquez said.

“Luck,” Billy said, without inflection.

Vasquez gave Billy a look. Billy did not grin at him.

“Raw talent,” Vasquez said.

“Whatever you say,” Goody said.

“Where was I?” Vasquez asked.

“You were going to tell us how you came back to life.”

“Ah, yes, well, the partner I had who I was hiding out with, he decided to shoot me in the back, literally. I was very confused waking up there on the floor. Found him sitting there dead. Heart attack probably.”

“After Rose Creek?” Billy asked.

“Became a US citizen. Stayed alive,” Vasquez said, last part boasting, but then his expression turned serious. “Most of the time.” He looked away. “Saw Europe.”

~

“Oh right,” Goody said suddenly when standing in the produce section, tossing an apple between his hands, like that would somehow tell him whether or not they should get apples.

“Juliette told me to say hi to you from her and Maya.”

Billy snatched the apple from the air, which earned him a delighted smile from Goody.

“Should we be concerned that our therapists have started to date each other?” Billy asked, while putting the apple in the basket. He noticed Goody eyeing the oranges, and grabbed his shirtsleeve, dragging him out of the produce section.

“Do you want to change therapist?” Goody asked. Shrugging off Billy’s hand. 

Billy did not want to change therapists. He liked Maya, she was very good at understanding when he needed their time to just sit in silence; or when she had to metaphorically kick his ass into talking about what was bothering him – it was a difficult thing to read from him, so he was very impressed with her.

“No,” Billy said to Goody’s back. 

He was walking in front of Billy, and plucking various seemingly random items off of the shelves and putting in the basket Billy was carrying. Billy placed anything which wasn’t on the list in his head, back on the shelves; Goody never seemed too upset about the things he put in the basket never actually being purchased. Billy preferred to do the shopping on his own, because it took less time, but whenever they did go together he did appreciate the company.

“Billy, look,” Goody said, grabbing Billy by the arm and dragging him along. Billy smiled.

~ ~ ~

The second time Billy met Sam Chisholm, the then eighty year old man had accused them of trying to give him a heart attack. He was handling the third meeting a lot better, possibly because he was twenty-five, and he was the one who sought them out. This time it had been Goody who almost had a heart attack.

“When I was ten I woke up one morning and just knew,” Sam said. “Or well, I knew I had led a life before, and there were these flashes of memory. Just snapshots of a past life flashing before my eyes every now and again. A scent, a sound, something familiar would set off the memory flashes. I saw a hell of a lot of so called experts who did nothing to explain what was happening to me, so eventually I stopped mentioning them.”

They were sitting on the porch of Billy and Goody’s house, looking out at the Pacific, the water shining blue in the afternoon sun. Earlier that day in the morning, after finding the other side of the bed empty and cold, Billy had come out on the porch to watch Goody walk up and down the beach at the edge of the water. 

On the nights Billy couldn’t sleep, it was that he couldn’t fall asleep, and he would sit on the couch and read until he could no longer keep his eyelids open, at which point he’d either fall asleep on the couch or somehow stumble back into bed. Goody on the other hand had the problem that when he didn’t sleep through the night he would wake up too early and be unable to fall back asleep again, so instead would go outside and walk along the beach.

“By the time I was seventeen I could start to piece together actual memories,” Sam continued, “and they weren’t just pictures, but actual experiences. Still only got them in bits and pieces, didn’t remember you two or the fact that you were immortal until a few years ago. So I started looking.”

“I dreamed of you last night,” Goody said. “It’s why I freaked out when I opened the front door and you were standing there.”

“The lack of facial hair was a bit unsettling as well,” Billy said. Indicating Sam’s clean shaved cheeks. Sam and Goody laughed. “Although at least you are still recognizable without it,” Billy pointed out.

“Yeah, Billy and I had a hell of a time trying to recognize Vasquez.”

“How many else?” Sam asked.

“Just you, Vasquez and Red,” Billy said. “Vasquez is immortal as well.”

“We’re thinking of having a dinner here if we find everyone,” Goody said.

“All seven together again?” Sam asked, and Goody and Billy nodded.

~ ~ ~

Billy was chopping wood for the fire they were going to start on the beach, when Goody called out to him from the guest house. They didn’t have guests often, but when the stable had seen its last use they had started remodelling it. Putting up walls, proper flooring instead of the concrete. It had taken them years, but if there was one thing they did have it was a lot of time on their hands. They’d started long before they even had guests to come and visit them, but it had been something to do when they weren’t renovating the main house.

“Billy, I think I’ve changed my mind,” Goody said. Billy straightened up, leaving the axe on the ground, wiping sweat off his forehead with the back of his arm and looked over at Goody.

“What are you talking about?” Billy asked.

“Sam is younger than me now,” Goody said. “Maybe we should hold off on the dinner a few years.”

Goody was too far away to properly see Billy rolling his eyes, but he did it anyway.

“He’s always going to be younger than you,” Billy shouted back. “You’re more than a hundred years old!”

“Yeah, but he used to _look_ older than me.”

Billy just shook his head, picked up the wood and started carrying it down to the beach.

“Billy, Billy,” Goody’s voice called out behind him. Before he eventually walked back into the guest house to keep putting fresh sheets in the beds.

~ ~ ~

Faraday was the first to arrive that afternoon. Falling out of a cab, carrying a large backpack and he looked around curiously before reaching Billy and Goody who were waiting on the stoop.

“Why,” Faraday began before he had even reached them. “Are you two living in the middle of nowhere?” he asked, behind them the cab managed to make a three point turn and started heading back the way it had arrived.

“Do you have something against big cities?” Faraday asked, stopping and dropping his bag at his feet.

 _Yes_ , Billy thought. Big cities were noisy, and if there was one thing both him and Goody didn’t need it was loud and unexpected noises.

“We like it here,” Goody said, mildly.

Which was an understatement, they would hardly have stayed for so long if they didn’t love it. It got cold in the winter, and the wind was merciless, but on good days like this one, it was a dream. It was secluded and they had it just to themselves. Billy had lost count how many times they had run completely naked into the water just because they could. 

Their house had started out small, but even if they tried not to hoard things, they still needed more storage space, mostly for the many books they kept buying, but also a huge walk in pantry. And they had needed their own offices, because they both needed a space to be alone. But despite the continually growing house, the inside still had the feeling of a small and cozy house, it felt like a place where they lived, and not a museum of things collected through time. 

Billy showed Faraday to the guest house, where he dumped his bag, and Billy provided him with the wifi password, because:

“We’re not completely cut off,” Billy said.

They came back to the main house at the same time as Vasquez arrived, driving a white pick-up truck with Red in the passenger seat. Red was the same age as he had been the first time around, but this time his hair reached his waist.

“Woah, dude,” Faraday said, reaching out to touch, when Vasquez slapped his hand away.

“Come on, pendejo.”

Faraday rounded on Vasquez, breaking out into a huge delighted grin.

“Güero!” Faraday said. “Joke’s on you this time. I took Spanish in high school.”

“And you completely failed to pick up the meaning of güero?” Vasquez asked, amused.

“It never came up,” Faraday said.

“Sure it didn’t,” Vasquez said, and then said something in rapid Spanish, Billy didn’t quite catch it, but he thought he heard “ridículo” and could guess at least the gist of what he said. Faraday just stared.

“Sorry, I didn’t quite keep up with that,” Faraday said.

“That’s okay, güero,” Vasquez said, grinning. He turned to Billy and Goody. “Thanks for having us, this is a great idea. Even if we have to put up with Faraday.”

“Hey,” Faraday protested. Vasquez ignored him and continued.

“Though, I have to say you are really hidden away here. I almost got lost.”

“He did get lost,” Red said. “Twice.” Vasquez shot him a look. Red just looked at him with an innocent expression.

They were interrupted by the sound of another arrival. A black car drove up and parked next to Vasquez pickup.

“Fearless leader!” Faraday shouted when Sam stepped out of the car. Sam shook his head, while he unloaded his black suitcase from the trunk, and then came up to them.

“I thought Horne was coming with you?” Goody asked.

“He called me, said his flight’s been delayed, told me to just go ahead and he’ll get a cab. He should get here in another hour or so.”

“Alright,” Billy said. “Goody’ll show you to your rooms, while I get back to preparing the food.”

“I’m going to check out the beach,” Faraday said. Billy grabbed the back of his shirt just as he was starting to walk away.

“There are chairs on the porch, you can carry them over to the table that’s set up near the bonfire.”

“You know, I once saved your lives by sacrificing myself, I think a little bit more respect and gratitude is in order,” Faraday said.

“That was another life,” Red said, and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Come on, I’ll help.”

~ ~ ~

Horne looked exactly the same, all of their reincarnated friends had to some extent, but there was almost always something vaguely different about them, different posture, slightly different expressions, somewhat different speech patterns, something. Not with Horne, and Billy thought he could be excused for thinking he was actually another immortal at first. Except that theory was disproven quickly.

“I thought I saw Goody once before,” Horne said. “When I was a kid. No more than ten or eleven.”

Goody found Horne through Facebook. Billy wasn’t sure if he had actively been searching or just stumbled across him like he did with Vasquez.

“But it was right after I started having those flashbacks to the past, and didn’t know if I was just imagining things.”

“Sam said it came back to him in bits and pieces,” Billy said. They were sitting in the coffee shop below Horne’s apartment in San Francisco, the coffee shop Horne owned.

“Yeah, that’s about right,” Horne said. “It wasn’t in any sort of chronological order though. Got bits from when I was a kid, the first time around, as well as bits from when I met you, and even before that. Didn’t remember dying until I thought I was dying again.”

They had been shown Horne’s apartment first, and Billy thought of the photo he’d seen hanging on one of the walls, of a younger Horne in uniform.

“Was on that operating table for near 20 hours.” Horne placed a hand on the side of his stomach. “But before that, when I was lying there, bleeding out in the sand all I could remember was how it felt to have my chest pierced by arrow after arrow.” He shook his head, closing his eyes for a second before he looked across the table to Goody and Billy.

“We won though, didn’t we?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Goody said, with a slow smile. “We did. We two didn’t find out at the time, but we heard it later. Mrs. Emma shot Bogue in the end.”

“Then it was all worth it,” Horne said.

~ ~ ~

Dinner was cheerful, with everyone eating well – food had only gotten better and better really as time progressed – and drinking even more; everyone laughing and talking loudly, with Red talking more adding another voice. Their reincarnated friends telling stories about getting their memories of their past life back. 

Faraday had a seemingly neverending supply of stories where he had told people about things that had happened to him, only to realize halfway through that he was talking about something which had happened to him in his previous life. 

Red told them about trying to show off his horseback riding skills, only to realize that while he did have the memories, he didn’t have the muscle memory of it. Which sent all of them off on having the same stories from when they were kids, trying to spin toy revolvers and not being as good at it as the memories in their head made them think they were.

“Do you still have the knives?” Red asked Billy who had just taken a drink held up two fingers.

“You sold the rest?” Vasquez asked, and Billy nodded.

“I’m more curious about the hairpin, what about that one?” Faraday asked.

“I don’t know,” Billy said, honestly. He hadn’t used it in years, though he still had long hair. It was simply in a bun now, or let down. Goody had a hard time deciding what he liked the most.

“Can you still throw?” Faraday asked.

“No,” Billy said. He hadn’t needed to in a long while, so his skills had gone quite rusty.

“Too bad,” Faraday said. “Would have been fun with a demonstration.”

“I suppose we could all demonstrate just how awful we are at shooting and throwing things now days,” Sam said.

“Speak for yourself,” Red said. “I almost went to the olympics.”

“What?” Faraday said gaping at Red.

“I’m a really great archer,” Red said, with a smug smile.

~ ~ ~

They piled all the dishes into the kitchen, to be dealt with in the morning and returned to the beach. As dusk fell the wind had died down, and the ocean was not still, but calmer. And they all sat down in the sand on blankets, and Goody pulled Billy down onto his blanket, wrapping them both in a second blanket.

They sat there their whole group together on the beach, watching the sunset, the fire crackling behind them. And Goody told them stories about the past, sticking to the happier parts of history. Considering he usually spent his days writing history books, he seemed like the obvious choice.

Billy relaxed back against Goody’s chest. Feeling satisfied and content. Goody’s arms wrapped around him. As he only half paid attention to the cadence of Goody’s voice. Every now and then interrupted by a murmured question from, Horne, Sam or Red. Vasquez and Faraday were trying to share one blanket, but seemed to be mostly pushing at the other one to get it for themselves.

Billy had a lot of lovely moments with Goody which he treasured and thought back to with fondness. But this was the first time in a long while he felt like they were making memories with an extended family which he could also look back on with fondness.

Finding them all had been surprising and unexpected, but he was glad it had happened. He closed his eyes, pressing himself even closer to Goody and breathing him in. Still so happy to have Goody by his side, even after all this time.

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe mag7week is over! What am I now going to do with my lfe? Please come talk to me on [tumblr](http://tramstrams.tumblr.com).


End file.
